Censorship Committee Research Articles

Критерии одобрения учебников по Закону Божию Училищным Советом Учебного комитета при Святейшем Синоде для школ Российской империи

This article characterizes the concepts of publicity and censorship, which are an integral part of social and political life. Control over these institutions was also important in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when church literature, particularly educational literature, was subjected to strict evaluation. Censorship committees were widespread throughout the Russian Empire, but one of the central bodies that was the censor was the Teaching Council of the Teaching Committee under the Most Holy Governing Synod. The article lists the criteria for approval of textbooks and manuscripts submitted to the Holy Synod. The article lists the criteria for approval of textbooks and manuscripts received by St. Synod. Most of the books were rejected at this stage because the censors saw various errors in the books, ranging from spelling and punctuation to spiritual errors that could distort the dogmatic side of Orthodox doctrine. One form of rejection or approval of a book could be a permission to allow the book into the libraries of certain types of educational institutions. However, at the provincial level, textbooks could be allowed to be distributed in schools or to the public with the blessing of the ruling bishop, the local censorship committee, or in the presence of a favorable review from the local representation of a popular church journal. For example, this was the Church Herald. Therefore, there was a dual state of affairs in the matter of censorship of books: on the one hand, there was a center in St. Petersburg, which received new manuscripts, and on the other hand, many little-known books in the capital were quietly used in Russian schools and sold in bookstores. In spite of this, local censorship committees and diocesan authorities, although they did not have the full experience of the members of the Study Committee, kept diligent watch over the emerging educational literature.

Русский модернизм и цензура: заметки к теме

The article presents cautious complaints about the tradition of neglecting the issue of censorship’s persecution of modernist publications. An approximate range of printed and handwritten sources for the description of censorship practices is outlined. The preliminary list of poetry collections for which official restrictions were implied and/or imposed is provided. With the help of archival sources, the history of the prohibition and subsequent release of the two issues of the main Symbolist magazines, “Vesy” and “Zolotoye Runo”, is reconstructed. The algorithm of the supervisory mechanism concerning the periodical after the abolition of the preliminary censorship is described in detail — from the first signal about a text with prohibited content through the collection of expert opinions to collegial discussion and directly to repressive measures. A separate paragraph describes the role of a member of the Moscow Censorship Committee, who played a key role in both stories and how the properties of this role changed depending on personal acquaintance with the author of the text, which was being prohibited. Among the unexpected circumstances that unite these cases is the absolute peacefulness of censorship, which in fact profaned both the orders of higher authorities and the obvious violation of current legislation, limiting the punishment to a ridiculously low fine and, in fact, levelling their complaints.

The Roman and Viennese indices of prohibited books in Austrian and Bohemian lands under Maria Theresa

Under Maria Theresa (ruled 1740‒1780), handling books in Austrian and Bohemian lands was largely governed by the Index librorum prohibitorum, which the Catholic Church in Rome started publishing in 1559, and the Catalogus librorum a commissione aulica prohibitorum, which the Court Book Censorship Committee in Vienna published from 1754 onward. Through censorship secularization, the Viennese index gradually replaced the Roman one, but that did not mean it did not copy it or that it was more liberal. It was created under the influence of the (moderate and Catholic) Enlightenment, but its main goals continued to be protecting the faith and the Church, as well as pursuing the interests of the (Catholic) ruling dynasty and its state. The Viennese index soon reached the same length as the Roman one, but it by far exceeded it in the frequency of its updates and releases. Compared to the Roman index, it had a more internal character: it did not list the names of the ruler (and co-regent) and responsible officials, nor the areas it applied to. It was more forgiving toward scholarly and older Protestant, political, and philosophical works. It treated pseudo-scholarly and more recent Protestant works, as well as old literature, in a similar way as the Roman index (i.e., mostly strictly), and it was stricter toward religious Catholic works and more recent political and philosophical works and literature (especially plays).

Some features of censorship policy during the Crimean War of 1853–1856

The article is devoted to the analysis of new sources found in the National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan, which clarify the picture of the censorship policy of the tsarist government during the war years. The study was carried out based on the modernization concept of Russian history, in which the printed word appears as one of the main engines of modernization, as well as on the methods of intellectual history, in which book publishing and the press are studied in close connection with issues of censorship policy. The modern historiography of the Crimean (Eastern) War continues to be enriched with new works devoted to Russian public life and connected with the history of the press and censorship. А rich literature is devoted to the history of Russian periodicals and journalism, but not to the censorship policy of the Russian Empire. The article considers a number of circulars of the Ministry of Public Education, which was the leading state body in the implementation of the censorship policy, but in war conditions it carefully took into account the requirements of the Military Censorship Committee under the General Staff. The emperor actively intervened in censorship issues, especially in publicizing literary works in the press. For example, the newspaper Samarskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti shows, that the provincial press reprinted notes and reports about the war from the capital news that had already passed the censorship check. Despite the selection of information, these reports did not hide information about the losses of Russian troops

История одной несостоявшейся публикации: о рукописи «Дополнения к переписке с друзьями»

The article is devoted to certain aspects of the censorship history of “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” related to the preparation for the publication of “Works by Gogol” in 1855–1856. At that time, an attempt was made to publish the text of “Selected Passages…” without censorship exceptions, and the Moscow Censorship Committee received the manuscript “Additions to Correspondence with Friends,” which included the texts of chapters that were not allowed for publication in 1846. The paper presents the circumstances of its censorship consideration. It also establishes that one of the handwritten copies of the prohibited chapters of “Selected Passages…” stored in the Manuscript Department of the Russian State Library is a part of this manuscript, although it now has a different name. Comparison of this handwritten copy with other censorship materials showed that the edits in it fully correspond to those described in one of the documents of 1856; the page numbers with pencil marks coincide with those indicated in the censor’s report; the sequence of chapters is the same as in the manuscript submitted to the Moscow Censorship Committee; and finally, there are edits made by P.A. Vyazemsky, who, as is known, read the “Additions to the Correspondence…” and planned to discuss the necessary changes with the publisher. At the same time, there are still a lot of questions related to both the history of the creation of this manuscript and its future fate.

К истории публикации брошюры Н. И. Кареева «Южные славяне и Италия на Адриатике». 1916 г.

The article publishes correspondence concerning publication of a pamphlet by the famous Russian historian, Nikolai Ivanovich Kareev (1850–1931) “Southern Slavs and Italy on the Adriatic.” It was to be published in the series “World War and Slavic Questions.” The compilers intended the series to increase the knowledge in the Russian society about the “Slavic question” and its prospects after the war. In particular, they supported the idea of uniting the Czechs and Slovaks into a Czechoslovak state and expanding the borders of Serbia, both at the expense of Austro-Hungarian territories. Kareev held to a similar point of view in his brochure, based primarily on historical facts. Written in the summer of 1916, this work reflected his views on the course of the war and the future post-war world order. In the question of the fate of Austrian Istria and Dalmatia, Kareev actually supported the Serbian side, seeing no reason for Italy to acquire these lands after the victory over the Central Powers. At the stage of censoring, the essay encountered some obstacles. According to the existing procedure, the Petrograd Committee for Press Affairs (which also dealt with military censorship) sent essays on foreign policy topics to the Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for review. In August 1916, Kareev’s manuscript was received there. After reviewing it, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Neratov advised to postpone the publication of the brochure, as it raised difficult questions and might have caused discontent of Italian allies of Russia. The manuscript was “stuck” in the censorship committee for two months, and Kareev tried to solve the problem by contacting the head of the Second Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, baron Boris Nolde, who, in his turn, advised him to write a personal letter to Neratov. In his letter, Kareev assured Neratov that there was nothing “offensive” in the brochure; it was written in “objectively scientific” language; the facts had been published and discussed not only in England and France, but also in Italy. Kareev also asked Neratov for a personal meeting to convey his arguments. It is possible that the meeting actually took place, because a week later the director of the Press and Information Department, Alexander Lysakovsky, informed the chairman of the Petrograd Press Committee, Nikolai Levitsky, that the Foreign Ministry no longer had any complaints against Kareev’s brochure and it could be published. The published documents show the mechanism of censoring essays on foreign policy topics in Russia during the First World War. In addition, N.I. Kareev’s letter is now introduced into scientific use, supplementing his extensive epistolary legacy.

Директор Императорской Публичной библиотеки Д. П. Бутурлин

Director of the Imperial Public Library D. P. Buturlin left behind contradictory, but mostly negative memories of his contemporaries, based on his activities as chair of the censorship Committee on April 2, 1848, which went down in history as the “Buturlin Committee”. In the shadow of his position as the chief censor of the country, his fruitful activity as director of the first national library in Russia remained. The article presents new archival materials, important testimonies of the Library staff who served under him, and an attempt is made to objectively reproduce all the good undertakings of this director and point out the miscalculations he made.

Censoring Ukrainian patriotism in the Russian Empire: the ban on the second printing of the History of the Rus′ in 1858

ABSTRACT This article examines the censorship case of the second printing of Istoriia Rusov ili Maloi Rossii (The History of the Rus′ or Little Russia). The book, which was apocryphally attributed to Archbishop Georgii Konisskii, is a history of the Little Russian Cossacks containing much fiction. It was submitted to the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee in August 1858. After consideration at the council of the Chief Censorship Administration, the highest collegial body of censorship in the Russian Empire, it was denied authorization for publication. The explicit motive for the denial was that the book contained local patriotism. This expressed motive shows that already five years before the notorious Valuev directive, which restricted Ukrainian publications in the empire, the censors were alert to the propagation of Little Russian or Ukrainian particularism and found it harmful. The files of the Chief Censorship Administration indicate the page numbers of the passages that the censors found impermissible, which makes possible a detailed reconstruction of their thinking. The censors marked the passages in which the status of Muscovy as the successor to the medieval Principality of Kyiv was questioned, as well as those that portrayed the Russian monarchs negatively.

Subverzivni diskurs proze u trapericama

Because of their literary works, writers have often been persecuted, put on trial, banned, libelled or publicly ridiculed throughout history. The vitriol of public opinion was mostly focused on introducing real facts into fiction, or portraying actual political figures in a caricatural way. The censorship committee of socialist Yugoslavia was itself not above putting artists or their fiction on trial. With a watchful eye, searching for “external and internal enemiesˮ, the censorship had a mission to recognize and suppress subversive artistic works. This paper analyzes the subversive character of Yugoslav “Jeans Proseˮ, genre with very specific stylistic features. The paper deals with examining the competency of literary critics that went against the “new expressionˮ of the Jeans Prose – either because of personal animosity or for ideological reasons; in addition, it shed some light on the background of the public opinion and its attitude towards so-called modern literature, aimed at incorporating capitalist ideals into Yugoslav system of values. By detecting suspect elements in the most prominent novels of Yugoslav Jeans Prose (Čangi; Kužiš, stari moj; Beleške jedne Ane), as well as examining their narrative structure in detail, the so-called damaging effects of the non-canonical Jeans Prose are delineated and debunked.

К биографии С.П. Шевырева — профессора Московского университета: атрибуция, датировка и публикация письма «к неизвестному адресату» (РГАЛИ)

One of the unpublished letters of S. P. Shevyrev is stored in the RGALI with a note — “to an unidentified person with the address ‘Mikhail Nikolaevich’ dated January 11, b/g”. References and mentions in the letter allow us to name the addressee and the date of the address to him with absolute accuracy: Shevyrev wrote to Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokhvisnev, censor of the Moscow Censorship Committee, on January 11, 1855. In turn, the real circumstances of its origin disclosed in the commentary to the document shed light on several not quite clear episodes from the history of Russian culture in the mid-19th century, including preparations for the centennial of Moscow University, and also provide important details of the last decade of Shevyrev's life.

Newspaper "Kavkazskie obyavleniya in the History of the Tiflis Press

Based on the archival documents of the censorship committee, this article studies the factors that influenced the functioning and determined the suspension of the activities of the newspaper “Kavkazskie obyavleniya” (“Caucasian Advertisements”), as well as the policy and some characteristics of the newspaper.The development of advertising and reference newspapers in Tiflis in the second half of the 19th century had the following characteristics: discreteness, short publication time, broadening content, and frequent name change of newspapers. All newspapers of such type were published mainly in Russian, although when compiling the section of advertisements, the editorial boards, for the most part, gave preference to the principle of multilingualism. It was inherent for the vast majority of private periodicals in Tiflis.The newspaper “Kavkazskie obyavleniya” in some sense served as an accompaniment to the Tiflis newspapers and performed two functional roles: on the one hand, the newspaper work as an additional channel for the distribution of Tiflis press, on the other hand, the it accumulated advertising and reference information, and guaranteed the provision of this information to all readers of the Tiflis periodicals.In 1890, the censorship dismissed the publisher’s request to broaden the newspaper's content, and eventually this decision caused the closure of the newspaper.Despite the short period of existence, the newspaper “Kavkazskie obyavleniya” brought noticeable innovations to the advertising activities of the Tiflis periodicals: an endeavor to concentrate advertising and reference information in one information space and mutually beneficial cooperation with rival press.

Kontrolowanie zagranicznych i zakordonowych czasopism polskich przez cenzurę rosyjską

The aim of the article is to reconstruct the possibilities people living in the part of Poland an-nexed by Russia had to access Polish-language periodicals published outside that area. The author draws on two types of sources hitherto barely every used: monthly lists of imported publications dealt with by tsarist censors between the fall of the January Uprising and the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution, lists published by the (Central) Committee of Foreign Censorship in Saint Petersburg, as well as all minutes of meetings — preserved in the Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw — of the Warsaw Censorship Committee from the analysed period, which contain justifi cations of the decisions taken by the officials with regard to various publications. In addition, the author has been able to access nearly all issues of journals censored in any way at the time and currently kept in the 23 largest Polish historical libraries. It turns out that import attempts (possible only in the case of periodicals that had not been previously proscribed) were rare and concerned only 93 titles. In the case of over a half of them censors prevented even a single issue from being circulated. Justifications of the refusals were similar to those formulated with regard to books. Most of them focused on protecting the Orthodox religion, the Imperial House, and Russia’s policy. Particular attention was paid to limiting the infl uence of the Catholic Church and the Poles’ aspirations to freedom. However, sometimes censorship was — perhaps deliberately so — inconsistent. It seems that the limited scale of import was also infl uenced by the limited interest in publications from beyond the cordon on the part of the local readers, who were satisfi ed with Warsaw publications.

CONTENT ANALYSIS AS THE METHOD OF STUDYING OF THE REGIONAL PRESS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE 19th CENTURY

The article analyzes the materials of the regional press of the southern provinces of the Russian Empire, published in the middle of the 19th century under the control of the Odessa Censorship Committee. Reconstruction of historical processes has its own epistemological features; it implies the need to search for various qualitative and quantitative methods of researching sources. Periodicals in general and the press of the southern region in particular have two important attributes of a mass source – the typology of the social phenomena reflected in it, and information richness, which makes it possible to solve a number of issues of its study using content analysis. At present, this method is one of the leading in the studying of periodicals in foreign and domestic science. The purpose of the article is to identify the possibilities of content analysis to study the perception of the regional press of the preparation of reforms carried out by the government of the Russian Empire in the 60-70-s of the 19th century. Content analysis shows that during the preparation and implementation of socio-economic transformations in the Russian Empire, the regional press mainly formulated the platform of entrepreneurs of the South: the abolition of serfdom, the development of industrial production and transport, freedom of trade. At the same time, the periodicals of the region vigorously advocated the implementation of other reforms: they defended the idea of granting the rights of broad self-government at the local level, the implementation of judicial reform, reforms in the field of censorship, 146 etc. According to content analysis, government bills assessments that are found in periodicals in the southern region are relatively diverse. They range from unconditional approval to skeptical remarks. The diversity of information in periodicals is represented by a certain number of domestic political priorities determined by the political orientation of the editorial board. For the implementation of content analysis in this aspect, the following have been obtained: 1) a catalog of topical social problems presented for the press discussion; 2) a catalog of ideas about the methods and tendencies of public assessment of the reformatory activities of the government on the pages of the regional press. The catalog includes the values of the economic and social sphere. The Value Orientation Analysis Tool has combined a number of binary constructs. This research have been identified the organs of the press with a certain value orientation to the traditional and reformatory scales. Content analysis showed the catalogs of values in the regional press mostly coincide. The average correlation coefficient for publications on the reformatory scale is 0.56 and on the traditional scale is 0.21. Thus, content analysis makes it possible to more clearly present the specifics of the discussion on the pages of the regional press of reform projects proposed by the government of the Russian Empire in the era of reforms, to count the number of comments on government projects, as well as to identify the influence of publicity on the final document approved by emperor Alexander II. Substantially different, the content-qualitative analysis and formal-quantitative analysis of press materials do not exclude, but mutually complement each other, allowing compensating for the shortcomings in each of them, because they pursue the same goal – to obtain valid and reliable research results. Their organic combination is most effective

Portugal no contexto marcelista.

O objetivo do presente ensaio é dar a conhecer e refletir sobre os processos de censura e atas da Comissão de Censura portuguesas aos filmes brasileiros, durante o período marcelista (finais de 1968-1974). A documentação consultada e mencionada encontra-se no Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (ANTT), em Lisboa. Quanto da produção cinematográfica brasileira, destes anos, chegou a Portugal? Quais os temas mais censurados? Qual o número de filmes brasileiros censurados e proibidos em Portugal, de finais de 1968 a 1974? Estas são algumas das perguntas a que tentaremos dar uma resposta.

Гаспринскийнинъ газета чыкъармасына рухсетнаме ичюн дипломатик куреши

The given article, on the basis of archive documents, reveals the information concerning the attempts of I. Gasprinsky in (1881–1882) to obtain permission from S. Petrsbourg Censorship Committee to open a private printing house in his own home, in Bakhchisaray. The informationl, about publication of separate pages of “Tonguch”/”First-born,” (1881), “Shafak”/ “Dawn” and “Tercuman”/ “Translator” (1882) are given in precise form.

Censor History of Kulish’s Novel “The Black Council”: Introductional Remarks

A censor history is one of the most important issues in the textual study of Kulish’s novel “The Black Council”. However, this problem has never been considered before by the Ukrainian scholars, and even more general issue, i.e. “Kulish and the Censorship”, was not involved much into the field of research. This paper gives an introduction to this topic shedding some light on the censor history of “The Black Council”.Relations between Kulish and the tsarist censorship in different times were ambiguous which was caused by several reasons. The first one was individual approach of the censors to his works which might be connected, in particular, with the trial of Saints Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood (1847). Other reason was general persecution of the Ukrainian literature, especially after the Ems Ukase (1876). In order to circumvent censorship Kulish published his works also abroad. Before Kulish was arrested he wrote his works without paying particular attention to the censorship.
 The first writer’s concerns about possible restrictions that might be imposed on his works by the censorship arose with the novel “The Black Council”. Kulish’s arrest radically changed circumstances of his life and creative activity. Until 1856 he had to submit his works to prior censorship consideration and used pseudonym Nikolai M. (the name of his friend Nikolai Makarov) to avoid these restrictions. The Third Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Personal Chancellery allowed Kulish to publish his works on the base of the general censor regulations only in April 1856. In a short time Kulish sent the manuscript of “The Black Council” to the censorship committee.

Characteristics of Kharkiv theatre development in1840–1860’s (on the materials of State Archive of the Kharkiv Region)

Characteristics of Kharkiv theatre development in1840–1860’s (on the materials of State Archive of the Kharkiv Region)

Hyacinth Karpinsky’s translation of the “Tractatus de Processione Spiritus Sancti” by Adam Zernikaw

The anti-catholic Tractatus de Processione Spiritus Sancti by Adam Zernikaw was created in the late 17th century in Latin and was significant for interconfessional polemic between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church in the Russian Empire over the next centuries. In this paper we systematize information about the history of the tractate in Russia, including its significance for the Tractatus de Processione Spiritus Sancti by Theophan Prokopovich. Russian translations of Adam Zernikaw’s Tractatus are also considered. The earliest Russian translation was done in Kiev in the late 18th century by Hieronym Koptsevich into late Church Slavonic. In 1795, the Ober-Procurator Aleksei Musin-Pushkin commissioned Hyacinth Karpinsky to do another translation, this time into Russian, but the translator had died before the translation was finished. After that, the Synod ordered the members of the Moscow Ecclesiastical Censorship committee to finish it, but it became impossible due to Adam Zernikaw’s original Latin text getting mixed up with the Theophan Prokopovich’s work by the same name. Eventually, the first Russian publication of Tractatus de Processione Spiritus Sancti by Adam Zernikaw happened in 1902. Using different manuscripts of Hyacinth Karpinsky’s Russian translation, we analyze the language edits made by the translator and make suggestions on specifics of the development of a style of Russian-language religious literature in late 18th – early 19th centuries.

The Russian Censorship in the Era of Censorship Terror: Focused on Emergency Censorship Committee

이 글은 니콜라이 1세 통치 말기 7여 년(1848-1855)의 검열양상을 고찰한 것이다. 니콜라이 1세의 치세에는 검열에 관한 모든 문제들이 황제 자신의 적극적인 관여 속에 결정되었다. 그는 스스로 제국의 최고 검열관이자 ‘검열관들의 검열관’이 되었다. 이 논문에서 다루고 있는 시기는 ‘검열테러시대’로 지칭될 만큼 엄혹한 검열체제가 확립되었다. 검열체제의 강화는 1840년대 말유럽에서 발생한 혁명적 사건들에서 기인한 것으로 비상검열위원회의 설립과 검열관의 자질 향상이라는 두 가지 경향 속에 이루어졌다. 통상적인 공식 검열과는 별개로 그 어떤 법률의 틀에도 제한받지 않는 비공개적이고 비공식적인 검열이 언론출판을 억압했다. 특히, 1848년 4월 2일 설립된 부투를린위원회는 니콜라이 1세가 사망하는 1855년까지 검열체제 강화에 있어 중요한 역할을 했다. 비상검열위원회의 등장은 기존의 사전검열제와 ‘검열에 대한 검열’의 사후징벌적 검열제가 병행되는 양상을 보여준다. 교육부 관할의 검열을 통과한 저작도 비상검열위원회의 검열대상이었던 것이다. 이처럼 ‘검열에 대한 검열’은 언론출판계 뿐만 아니라 기존 검열체제 안의 검열관들에게도 경각심을 불러일으켜 검열의 기준은 더욱 강화되었다. 니콜라이 1세가 의도한 이러한 검열의 순환구조는 자유로운 정보유통을 제한함으로써 사회 제 관계에서 러시아의 낙후성이 지속되게 만들었으며 당대 진보적 지식인들과의 갈등을 초래했다. 이것은 결국 크림전쟁에서의 패배와 니콜라이 1세 사망을 계기로 러시아를 대개혁의 노정에 서게 하는 단초가 되었다.

History of the Earliest Russian Old Testament Translation

This paper introduces a previously unstudied manuscript, “Opyt perevoda vetkhozavetnykh knig [. . .] Mikhailom Fotinskim” (1806). In this article, we analyze the history of this manuscript, the circumstances surrounding the translation, and its purpose; some personal facts about the translator are also reviewed. This source represents the earliest Russian translation of the Old Testament, antedating by more than fifteen years the Russian Bible Society translations. Rev. Mikhail Fotinsky’s translation of five Old Testament books (only two ones in the Genesis) was sent to the Moscow Religious Censorship Committee (Moskovskaia Dukhovnaia tsenzura) in 1806, and the next year, Fotinsky asked the Censorship Committee to allow him to make a translation of the entire Old Testament. However, the censors left the manuscript in their repository, and there was no further development on this project. Contemporaries ignored this translation for several reasons. The first reason might be related to language: Fotinsky’s translation includes many Ukrainian elements. The second reason relates to its literary quality (or lack thereof), as the translation was interlinear and thus not stylistically developed. The manuscript contains many commentaries by Fotinsky, who concentrated on the Hebrew original and Judaic exegesis, trying to show different interpretations that may have occurred as a result of the polysemy of the original text.